NW Ga. un­em­ploy­ment drops down in Septem­ber

North­west Ge­or­gia’s un­em­ploy­ment rate fell in Septem­ber while other crit­i­cal mea­sures all trended in the right di­rec­tion, Ge­or­gia La­bor Com­mis­sioner Mark But­ler said.

The 15- county re­gion also in­creased its num­ber of em­ployed res­i­dents and la­bor force in Septem­ber. Mean­while, fewer un­em­ploy­ment claims were filed. All indicators were pos­i­tive for the year.

“It’s ex­cit­ing to see so many of our com­mu­ni­ties across the state do­ing so well,” But­ler said. “We con­tinue to add jobs and see the un­em­ploy­ment rate fall. Even bet­ter, peo­ple are get­ting hired — of­ten at record lev­els.”

The un­em­ploy­ment rate for Septem­ber, at 3.2 per­cent, was down .5 per­cent over the pre­vi­ous month. A year ago, the rate was 4.4 per­cent. The Septem­ber rate tied for fourth among the 12 re­gions.

The la­bor force in North­west Ge­or­gia climbed by 9 in Septem­ber to reach 422,247. That num­ber is up by 2,672 over the past year, an av­er­age monthly in­crease of about 220.

North­west Ge­or­gia gained 1,843 em­ployed res­i­dents in Septem­ber, push­ing the to­tal to 408,634. The num­ber is up 7,445 for the year, or about 620 per month.

Claims for un­em­ploy­ment in­surance fell by 17 per­cent in Septem­ber. They were down by 46 per­cent when com­pared to the same month a year ago.